You’re invited to opening of my next show, Rebâtir (Rebuild), on Thursday March 9th at 6:30 pm at the Maison de la Fontaine in Brest, France. The site specific installation features sculptures and rooms that I designed together with project participants including EESAB students Ophélie Fruchart, Océane Hamet, Clarisse Marguerite, Fiona Segadaes Da Silva, Matéo Guérillon, Julie Le Roux, Guillaume Martin, Sylvain Pinotie, Gwen Lebette and partners including local non-profits such at the Recyclerie Un Peu d’R and La Pince. For more information, click on the project’s facebook page!

The Installation, “We can’t breathe” is on display at La Galeru and La Galeru des Chemins in Fontenay-sous-Bois, France, through April 23rd. A guided tour of the works will take place on Saturday, March 28th.

Kasia Ozga (ACRE 2013) presents BOYS WILL BE BOYS, an exhibition juxtaposing celebratory conspicuous consumption and the reality of recent racially motivated street violence across the United States. A sculpture built on-site from fifteen Christmas trees transforms the iconic symbol into a shape that overwhelms viewers, challenging the magic of the holidays, championed by consumer culture.

Kasia Ozga is a Polish American sculptor and installation artist based between Chicago, IL and Paris, France. She creates public artworks and sculptural installations in a variety of materials for both interior and exterior spaces. Her works depict change in the body’s relationship to physical and social spaces, either directly, through the use of organic materials intentionally affected by weather conditions over time, or indirectly, via visual metaphors for the experience of time. Ozga is a former Kosciuszko Foundation Fellowship recipient, Harriet Hale Woolley Grant recipient from the Fondation des Etats-Unis and Young Professional Artist Travel Grant recipient from the Polish Ministry of Culture grantee. Her work has been exhibited in over 10 countries. She has created site-specific installations in materials ranging from bread to wicker, and from resin to bronze and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Paris 8, an M.F.A. from the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, and a B.F.A. from the SMFA, Boston.

Ordinary Projects is an exhibition space and curatorial project that leverages the success of Industry of the Ordinary to create a highly visible platform for performance, installation and other non-traditional media works.

ACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibitions) is a volunteer-run non-profit based in Chicago devoted to employing various systems of support for emerging artists and to creating a generative community of cultural producers. ACRE investigates and institutes models designed to help artists develop, present, and discuss their practices by providing forums for idea exchange, interdisciplinary collaboration, and experimental projects.

LIFT Gallery at Greensboro College is exhibiting video documentation of social practice art projects for its show ENGAGED. The theme of the show is open and artworks include community organizing, activism, environmentalism, intervention or performance, but must blur the line between artist and audience. The ten videos selected for the show will be exhibited at LIFT from November 7 to December 3, 2014. Featured artists include: William Paul Thomas, Ellen Mueller, Sheryl Oring, Matt Garcia, Kasia Ozga, Larry Caveney, Angela Wilcocks, Aaron Nemec, Patrick Lichty, and Maeve Jackson.

Kasia Ozga is a Polish-American sculptor with degrees from Tufts & the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, Poland, and the University of Paris. She returned to Chicago from France for her first solo show on her home turf in the Mission Gallery’s Sub-Mission Project Space. The work was informed by her experiences living abroad, but it’s a microcosm of a lot of the issues that Chicago is dealing with on large and small scales including immigration, pollution, sustainable living, and shrinking natural resources,.

Ozga and I discussed the motivation behind her work, art’s role in affecting social change, and what the Paris-based artist misses most about Chicago.

1) You use a lot of found objects in this show. Is that intentional?

I’ve used found objects on and off throughout the years and it really depends on the specific intent behind each piece. Internal Frontier, the series of chest x-ray cut-outs shown in military light boxes, depicts images of international borders throughout the world. The actual x-rays were donated by immigrants who live in France, and who were required to obtain the x-rays in order to submit their Carte de Séjour (residency permit) applications. If I had used another material for the cut-outs, or even if the x-rays came from medical sources unconnected to immigration, the work wouldn’t convey the same meaning.

2) What was the motivation behind projecting such a large-scale fingerprint? How did you go about finding a source?

I’ve made art installations using my own fingerprint before, as a reaction to government surveillance. I’m interested in how biometric data is now used to monitor people and to prevent them from accessing public spaces. The fingerprint wall drawings made from duct-tape and packaging tape claim otherwise “neutral” exhibition spaces and extend out into the floors and ceilings of the rooms in which they’re shown. The Chicago version of the piece involved a collaboration with Andrea R., a local undocumented college graduate, who was involved in the Dreamer movement. Rather than continuing to use my own fingerprint, I wanted to tie it to a pressing political concern that affects everyone in our society, whether we are citizens or not.

3) You have a series of modified maps. How did you choose the specific locations?

I wanted to link the most abundant metal on earth, Aluminum, to the history of its’ production and distribution. While I was on a residency at ACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibitions) last year, I researched different conflict zones related to aluminum production. I decided to focus on Ajka, Veszprém County, Hungary (where an industrial accident caused a toxic sludge spill of alkaline mud), the Saint Lawrence River in Massena, NY (where Superfund site exists in the place of a former Alcoa smelting operation), and the Simandou Mountain Range, Guinea (where Bauxite mining concessions were sold to BSGR through corruption involving one of the ex-dictator’s wives ). I created wax relief maps of these sites that incorporated geographic features cast from rubber molds of crushed aluminum cans. The maps were then cast in Aluminum in a local Chicago foundry.

4) In what ways do you feel your art creates space or opens discussions about the issues it addresses? Did you find those dialogues happened at the opening?

I create work that asks questions that are answered with questions. My goal is to stimulate dialogue and action, but not to provide a ready response to social and environmental issues. As far as the opening goes, I got a great turnout, especially from the Polish community in Chicago and it has been great to get reactions from people who have gone to see the show since!
5) Who were your biggest artistic influences for your pieces? Where do you draw inspiration?

I’m influenced by many artists who use specific materials to look at human presence within a larger social and environmental context. I’m inspired by artists such as Ann Hamilton, Dario Robleto, Juan Muñoz, Michel Blazy, Subodh Gupta, Cildo Mireiles, Marc Quinn, Monika Sosnowska and Agnes Denes, to name a few.
6) What do you think about having your work in a gallery as opposed to a public viewing?

I think that gallery shows and public spaces are suited for different kinds of artwork. I also believe that an artwork isn’t an object; it’s an experience that happens between the physical piece, the viewer, and the site, so changing the site will change how the artwork is perceived and reflected on.

7) You’re an international artist, with roots in Chicago, Paris and Warsaw. How do you see your multicultural background as shaping your work?

I wanted to show pieces that dealt with these issues for my first show in Chicago, which after having grown up in the Chicagoland area, I still consider my hometown. I was very fortunate to be able to immigrate to the US at a time when I could easily get citizenship. Today, a young person in the same situation wouldn’t have the same opportunities, especially if they came here from the Middle East or the Global South. My own background has enabled me to travel freely and has made me especially aware that this ability to “pass” in different cultural contexts is a privilege. While I grew up in the Midwest, I moved abroad after graduating from college and have spent many years in Poland and France. As my environment changed, physically and culturally, I remained committed to making art that explored the relationship between that environment and the bodies within it. All of my work remains grounded in some aspect of the body, which I see as the first medium through which we experience and affect the world around us, wherever we may be.

8) What do you miss most about living in Chicago?

I love the strong sense of community and collaboration among artists in town; the support networks and the apartment galleries, the music scene, deep dish and Mexican food, and summer movies and concerts in the parks! I miss the friendly and casual vibe to the city, the can-do attitude of my friends and family here, and the ease with which people share resources and information to support social change!

9) What are you working on now? Anything we can look out for soon?

I’m currently finishing up a residency at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center in Nebraska City, where I’ve been working on a site-specific sculpture and art/industry collaboration with a local manufacturer. This Fall, I will also have another show of my work with a performance component at Rooms Gallery in Pilsen!

For now, I’m looking forward to the continuing the discussion about my exhibition during my artist’s talk at Mission Gallery on Thursday, June 12th.

Alizah Salario‘s reporting, essays and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Racked, Slate, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She’s currently the education & careers editor at Metro U.S. A graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and Pitzer College, Alizah lives in Brooklyn.